


January to December (do you wanna be a member?)

by dollyfish



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Comedy, Hangover, LET RYOTA SIT DOWN, M/M, Mentions of Battle Royale, Mitarai Appreciation Squad, Past Mikan/Junko gets mentioned, Platonic Ryota/Sagishi/Mikan, Sexual Humor, because this is more meta than originally intended, courtesy of Miu, gratuitous misquoting of Jane Austen, izuru and hajime are twins, sagishi only deserves nice things, seriously this is just my attempt at humor, they wreck her car lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 10:05:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13144377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollyfish/pseuds/dollyfish
Summary: Until he was faced with the combined struggle of a scary boss, a broken phone, a high fever, a dirty-mouthed friend from college, an overzealous nurse, several unflattering remarks on his lifelong passion, deadline-induced panic and the devastating origin of a crush in one single night, Mitarai Ryota lived by his ideal of a clean and stationary schedule.But sometimes to make it through, only sometimes, all we need is a little push in an uncharted direction.





	January to December (do you wanna be a member?)

**Author's Note:**

> My gift for @mediati0nal-field, for the Danganronpa Secret Santa organized on tumblr  
> Surprise, I'm your santa!! Merry Christmas Saskia, I hope the new year has a lot of hope and joy in store for you!
> 
> this one is a bit of an experiment, since I've never really considered this pairing before? hopefully I haven't done a poor job at portraying them properly. i think their relationship would be one that evolves with no hurry, full of understanding and selfless support from both sides, slowly growing into something more, so that's what i tried! on another note i might have stalked your lovely blog a bit during the process, and I am Overwhelmed by the amount of miu i found there so I couldn't NOT add her to this trainwreck. she's great, and so is kiyo. I'm so happy you gave me a chance to write them.
> 
> title comes from "Lonely Hearts Club" by Marina & the Diamons, v recommended.  
> I hope you enjoy, Saskia!

 

 

It is a truth universally acknowledged that technological devices made for domestic and professional use alike have a failure rate of approximately 99,8% at the time they are most desperately needed. More than once throughout their lifespan the user won’t find any problem whatsoever and carry on, blissfully unaware of the despair that lies within said technological device, until the fateful day it will shut down instead of working the way it should and leave the user in a spiral of anguish probably followed by a mid-life crisis.

Ryota Mitarai, 26 years old, shaking repeatedly his cellphone as if it would bring it back to the land of the living, had never felt himself inch so close to that mid-life crisis. He knew it, he knew very well that his current level of stress wouldn’t have allowed him to live to see his grandchildren, but it had simply never occurred to him that the cause of his premature death would be a last generation phone featured in two out of five ads on the monitors in the electronics store he passed on his usual route to go buy groceries, the other three ads being about women’s underwear.

A new phone was supposed to make his job easier, considering the fact that he essentially led an hermit’s life, and he’d heard he could co-sync his computer’s animation program with it, to check if the 3D graphics were working on smaller screens, but he hadn’t had an chance to figure it out yet- if Kazuichi wasn’t with him, he may as well be living in the Edo era. For an animator who needed it for work, he was concerningly useless with high tech stuff.

Okay- _Breathe, Ryota. Breathe._

His phone had to die in the very moment he had tried to ring up the most merciless, terrifying man Ryota had ever encountered in his short, miserable life, the man whose word was law to him: his employer.

The problem (aside from communication) was that his deadline had caught up to him with nothing finished for an issue completely out of Ryota’s control, and moreover with a fever preventing him from working his ass off. Okay, maybe not _completely out of his control_ , but that wasn’t _the point_.

If he didn’t obtain an extension of the deadline as soon as possible, Ryota was done for: and no, Ryota wasn’t ready to kiss goodbye to the only career he could ever possibly imagine for himself.

The phone buzzed in his hands, making the soon-no-longer animator jolt out of his swirling thoughts. He grabbed the object with all his might, as if it could grow legs and run away, and it felt like even the drops of sweat on his face froze. In panic? Hope? What was even the difference, at this point?

The default screen appeared. It glitched for a second, then it went black once again.

No progress. Ryota let the phone drop onto the blanket with a defeated sigh and scratched his reddened nose, contemplating whether he should just give up socializing altogether and spend the rest of his days basking in shame under his covers.

Could one get by on instant ramen alone?

Just then, to add insult to injury, the door bell’s ominous ringing broke out in the apartment.

  
  
  
  
xxx  
  
  
  
  


Rewind of one week. That’s when it all started.

It started, like all tragedies, one uneventful morning. No, the _most_ uneventful morning, an excellent beginning worthy of the title of Ultimate Uneventful Day, which could only mean a great day in Ryota’s book. See, Ryota wasn’t one for intense passions, or hazardous adventures, or anything described as follows: exciting, stimulating, extreme. The list went on, including activities like “social gatherings” or “walks”. The most important contents of his bedroom were the chair in front of his working desk and his drawing tablet: his efficiency far from being undermined by trifles such as the basic human impulse of looking for food.

Anyway, that morning he drove all the way to the studio, the folder he had finished working on some hours before and a small-sized latte on the passenger seat. To be fair, he was slightly giddy.

Once he walked into the building he avoided looking at anyone in particular to blend with his surroundings, but inside, he felt like rushing to the elevator. He reached the executive producer’s floor, introduced himself to the mild-mannered secretary, whose feeble voice could barely be heard from behind her mask, and was immediately allowed into the boss’ office. Or, as Ryota liked to call it in his mind, the Dungeon.

“Mitarai-san.”

That lackluster voice made a cold drop trickle down his spine. _Here goes nothing._

“Y-Yes. Kamukura-san.”

“You seem concerned about something. Do tell.”

Ryota was well-acquainted with the producer’s tendency to cut to the chase. “Oh, do I? No, no, I’m just very excited... to discuss my project with you.”  
“This happens to be just a normal check-up. Also, I am way too occupied to give this meeting much importance, and I’d rather get to the point with you quickly.” The producer’s eyebrows furrowed ever so slightly, though Ryota didn’t even register it properly. That blank expression never changed significantly overall. “If you notice your legs shaking too much, sit on a chair.”

Ryota simply stood by the door, suddenly uncomfortable with his lanky limbs. He didn’t know what to do with them.

Kamukura turned his back to the room, facing the grey view of the city, a layer of snow falling slowly. “You’ll be given a one week extension to finish your project.”

“B-But I’ve already handed in most of it. The sequences are almost complete, I can do it in a couple days, I wouldn’t want the schedule to be compromised. Of course, the dialogue needs some reviewing but…”

“I haven’t made myself clear. We want your project ready in one week.”  
“But that means…”

“Yes. The voice-acting too.”

Ryota’s face blanched. He took a deep breath, drops of sweat started forming on his forehead, while a wall clock’s ticking came obnoxiously loud from one side of the office. “Kamukura-san, I thought the studio was going to handle that part...”

“You were the one who insisted on working alone, if I recall correctly. We’re talking about a short movie here, as well as your very first original work. You are going to have to think of every single part of it on your own. Make some friends do that, but hand it in one week from now.” Kamukura didn’t move from his spot in front of the vast window, and was fortunately spared from witnessing Ryota’s wide blank eyes and the look of absolute terror that dawned on his face when those words were spoken.  
The animator bowed respectfully, a slight tremor shaking the hands that clutched the folder to his chest, and left the office.

The reflective surface of the window, which allowed Kamukura to indeed see all of that, didn’t cross his mind at all.

Kamukura furrowed his brow again, re-evaluating their exchange before getting to work, and wondered if perhaps, he should have forced the kid to cooperate with someone, after all. Wasn’t that the job of detestable primary school teachers?

  


xxx

 

 

Ryota crawled out of the heap of blankets like a beetle struggling to regain an upright position. He fished his slippers from under the bed and left the room in a haste, reaching the front door and pulling it open in time to prevent the person outside from ringing the doorbell one more time.

His finger was hovering just inches away from the button, and Ryota’s gaze trailed up his arm, chest, neck, and finally, took in the stranger’s face. He tried to recall his last human interaction, but his mind was completely blank, as if someone had cleaned it of all its contents. One week ago, he had been in Kamukura’s office, but that felt as blurry and distant as a dream, and taken as he had been with his worries and anxiety, he had forgotten if he had even left the house in the meantime.

“C-Can I help you?” He croaked out, and in that exact moment he realized how horrendous his voice sounded to his ears.  
The other’s total lack of reactions scared him even more. An sudden urge to chicken out settled in his gut. Maybe he was a little weirded out, as he inspected the animator’s body, but Ryota couldn’t even pretend to be offended.  
His sailor moon pajamas felt as if it was stitched to his skin after wearing it for so long.

“No? I thought maybe I could help you, to be honest”, the man standing on his threshold said politely. He wore his dark hair in a low bun on his nape, a long cream-colored scarf hung loose from his neck.

He was very elegant at first glance.

Ryota looked down at his pajama shirt, then up again, and sniffled. “Who are you?”

“My name is Sagishi.”

“I suppose you’re no super famous seiyuu who wants to work on my anime, right?”

“What?”

“N-No, it’s nothing. You said you’re here to help me.”

The man, Sagishi, seemed to realize he was dealing with an person in a predicament of extremely delicate psychophysical balance at the moment. “Can I come in?”

“Yeah! Sorry, sorry, I… I may have worked a little too much lately and…” Ryota was cut off my a loud sneeze, making way for the other to enter. “... Well, you see for yourself.”

Sagishi wandered into the apartment with no hesitation, turning back once he was at the end of the hallway to peek inside Ryota’s bedroom. Ryota didn’t need to look at it again to know what impression it gave.

“A _little_ too much?” Sagishi inquired dryly.

“... The kitchen is on the right.”

“What’s your job anyway? Aside from, y’know, hikikomori.”  
Ryota opened the fauced of the sink to let water splash over the dirty dishes left there for… several days. He was an optimist. Sagishi didn’t take a seat, deciding to place his bag on the table. He extracted a white folder.

“My job? I’m a, huh, an animator.”

“I figured”, Sagishi said. “Here. This is probably yours. You left it at the pub a few nights ago, but I didn’t manage to get a free day until today and I thought you would come back to retrieve it. It looks important, but I’m no expert.”

“My script! Thank you so much, I thought I had lost it in my room, but… Are you sure I left it… in a place like that?”

Ryota received a deadpan stare at that objection. “I work there.”

“Oh. I didn’t mean-”

“Don’t worry. I guess you don’t remember much, do you? Well… you came in, ordered a few drinks, and that’s pretty much what I was expecting you to remember. I’m the one who called a taxi to take you home since you weren’t exactly in the condition to _find it_ alone. You gave me the address yourself right then, but I noticed you left the script on the barstool once I had already sent you off.” Sagishi paused in order to let Ryota take it in, probably. If Ryota hadn’t been experiencing the most embarrassing revelation of his life in front of a complete stranger, he might have thought it nice of him. “Not much happened but geez, you sure are a lightweight.”

That comment made Ryota blink back to the present. “I don’t remember.” As if that weren’t obvious enough.

He thought he saw a bit of sympathy flashing behind Sagishi’s eyes. “Of course you don’t. You were drunk off your ass.”

“But why?”

“Well, people order things, I make them, and they pay.”

“I mean… Did I gave any reason as to why I came there? It’s not a habit of mine… so....”  
Although, thinking about it with this new and unexpected information, and still paranoid from his previous existential crisis, it was not impossible to see things under a different light. He wondered if what he’d just claimed was, in fact, the truth. He didn’t remember anything about getting drunk, much less about heading to a bar of his own volition. Was this the reason he had woken up with a headache yesterday? His mind attempted to catch up to the exact events of the evening, but it came as no surprise when he could only grasp at shreds of darkness.

Sagishi reacted quickly, pulling a chair from under the table just a moment before Ryota’s legs gave out.

Ryota passed his hands over his hot face. He steadied his breathing, then asked a question he probably shouldn’t have, “What kind of drunk am I?”

 _Curiosity killed the cat_ , wasn’t it?

“Your antics could be described as a mixture of nihilistic fixation and content misanthropy.”

It was not far fetched to say his drunk self had a wider range of emotions than his current self, who physically cringed at the description and only felt one: death.

“You did, come to think of it, talk a lot about anime.”

“I’m very passionate about it.” That accidentally came out more defensive than Ryota intended. “T-Thanks, anyway. You basically saved my life, though I don’t remember it.”

“It’s okay. It’s the first time I saw you at the pub, if that’s reassuring in any way.”

“Oh.” Well, one less thing to fuel his despair. “What kind of name is Sagishi-san, anyway?”

The other man scratched the back of his head. “My stage name. Trust me, it’s way cooler than the real one.”

“You have a stage name?” Ryota inquired.

“My main job is acting. You could say the one at the bar is my way to survive during rest breaks from work.”  
Ryota didn’t want to lie, he was effectively impressed. “Are you in some famous movies or something? S-Sorry, I’m a lot more informed on...”

“Two-dimensional people. Yep, I got it.”

“That’s… Okay, you don’t have to be like this.”

Sagishi suppressed a snort. “I’m a theater actor. So no, don’t ask me to get you someone’s autograph, sorry.”

“I see.”

“I had a minor role in Battle Royale, but that’s pretty much it.”

“W-What?”

“I’m kidding. Just how old to you think I am?”

Ryota couldn’t tell. The guy’s expression didn’t flinch for a second. “Are you always this altruistic with hungover customers, Sagishi-san?”

“I could ask you a lot of questions about your personal life choices too, but I’m not.”

“Fair enough”, the animator breathed a sigh and, for the first time in days, allowed himself to relax his muscles into the chair, his thoughts were slowly but steadily getting less messy; it was cleaner inside his mind when there was someone discussing such trivial points, keeping the impending cause of his anxiety at bay. Ryota sniffled again, but this time it was followed by a smile.

“Listen, I’m really glad you came all this way for my sake… I mean, to return my work! Of course, I’m just like any guy, but this script is very important to meet my deadline.” The folder felt heavy as a brick in his hands, and his fingers like they could yield to gravity any moment now. There was still an exhausting stinging behind his eyes every time he blinked. On his lips, his smile gave into a disconsolate one. “Though I suppose it doesn’t matter that much now.”

The room fell into a silence, until Sagishi squatted down to Ryota’s level, searching his eyes beneath the animator’s almost femininely long lashes. He let Ryota avoid his gaze, then return it hesitantly, and waited until he was sure that he was being listened to. Ryota hadn’t felt like this since he was a child. Maybe he never had.

“Is this about the voice acting job you mentioned?”

“It’s not easy to explain”, Ryota said, but made an attempt anyway. He explained his project accurately, how his boss was probably going to fire him it he failed, testing Sagishi’s interest with details he would have spared anyone else, but the actor, much to his surprise, nodded his head in understanding. When he had finished, he felt his cheeks and neck burning more than before, but the confusion in his head had faded into background noise.

“This is quite troubling. Even thought you should have expected that.”

“Ah, you think so?”

“I can’t believe you walk around trusting companies like that. It’s a very competitive industry, after all.”  
“Look, I was just happy they accepted my job application…”

“Did your manager read the contract carefully?”

“Do I look like someone who can afford a manager?” The sink full of dirty dishes was still in Ryota’s field of vision. He wanted nothing more than to excavate a hole into the ground and stay in it forever. “I mean, look at me.”

“Would you stop being so hard on yourself for a second? I’m this close to shaking you with my bare hands, but it looks like you barely ate this month and that all you have in your fridge is frozen yogurt, instant ramen and self-loathing.”

He was short on frozen yogurt. Ryota opened his mouth as if to reply, but decided against it.

“I will be your voice actor.”

For a moment, Sagishi looked at him solemnly, expectantly. Anticipating some kind reaction, he let out a frustrated sigh when none came.

“I said I’ll do it, and you will submit your short movie in time. I really can’t see you like this.”

Ryota could feel the lungs in his ribcage freezing, his breath catching in his throat, and if the cogs and gears in his head weren’t merely metaphorical, now they would have stopped altogether at hearing those words. He felt a gratefulness and a disbelief so genuine he was not sure how to express them.

And Sagishi was a patient man, to a certain extent. “If you don’t want-”

“Alright.” Ryota’s eyes were practically gleaming. “The deadline is tomorrow morning… Listen, screw the deadline, and screw Kamukura-san, I’m gonna show him the best fucking anime he has ever seen, _ever_ . W-We should get to work immediately! I have an old tape recorder from college, I haven’t used it in years but it should do, _if_ it still works, but what if it doesn’t? Oh, tomorrow is a saturday, what if the studio opens later than usual? Should we break in from a window-”

“Chill down, Rambo.” Sagishi looked like he was trying to push down a smile, but Ryota couldn’t be sure. “I’m not signing up for any illegal act, alright? Unless it’s _strictly_ necessary. I’m a law-abiding citizen.”

“Sorry. U-Um, I just got ahead of myself there.”

“Let’s just deal with one problem at a time.” As Sagishi stood up, he pulled a cellphone (which had surely seen better days) out of his back pocket. The keychain attached to it was a miniature slice of pizza. He typed something quickly.

“Recording?” Ryota couldn’t contain his excitement and grabbed his knees to regain a semblance of self-control.

His shoulders shrunk under the fixed glare Sagishi sent his way. “No.”

“...What is it then?”

“Your physical wellbeing, Mitarai-san.”  


  


xxx

 

  


You certainly wouldn’t assume Ryota lived in a nuclear waste disposal site from looking at him, though a short visit to his apartment would have changed anyone’s mind in the blink of an eye. To be honest, that had never been the problem; he cleaned the dishes with some semblance of regularity and took out the garbage when it became impossible to walk around it, so he questioned why he should waste any more time on it.

Something was telling him that, if Mikan Tsumiki ever came into contact with his room, she would burst into tears on the spot. There was something deeply disturbing about the spotless apartment, its gleaming floor and neat surfaces, the almost total lack of ornaments that made up for the otherwise bright, soothing space. Ryota associated it to an unsettling vacancy, which Sagishi’s closeness couldn’t really wash away. The air itself smelled like antiseptics.

When Mikan let them into the living room, Ryota couldn’t help but think that the hygiene conditions were more rigorous than a hospital’s.

“Y-You must be… Mitarai-san.” Mikan’s odd way of speaking was broken and melancholic. She extended a timorous hand towards him, almost looking away from it, so when he shook it, Ryota wouldn’t have to get any closer to her body.

“Uhm, this is a really nice apartment, Tsumiki-san.”

Sagishi headed straight to the kitchen, gazing into the refrigerator for a very long moment. Mikan arched her eyebrows as if utterly stupefied, and a grin pulled up the corners of her mouth, showing a spotless row of teeth. “Really? You r-really think s-so? It’s the first time someone praises the room… I’m so happy, I’ve disinfected everything just b-before you arrived… A sick person s-should stay in an appropriate environment...”

“Ah, true… That was really professional of you. I’m not even that sick...”

Something cracked in Mikan’s expression and she took a few steps back, clutching her bandaged arm painfully close to her chest. She seemed anguished. “Is that so? That… is no good. I made things awkward.“

“That’s not what I meant…” tried Ryota, who was already regretting all the missed social gatherings in his life that would have prepared him to deal with this better. “You’re so kind-”

“He’s practically hallucinating from the fever, Tsumiki”, called Sagishi from his spot in the kitchen, where he was weighing a box of ice-cream in his hands. “You better work that miracle of yours. That’s what you’re good for, right? By the way. Do you have some chicken?”

Mikan’s tense figure slowly relaxed, until she looked more like her average self and less like someone on the verge of a nervous breakdown. There was a slight difference between the two. “It’s behind the diet cokes. I always keep some stored away for you! Now... Mitarai-san, please take a seat, a-and I’ll proceed with the treatment.”

“What the fuck is all this dietetic bullshit doing here?” He heard Sagishi grumble. “Buy more real food.”

“U-uh, well, to be fair, I-I’m fine with it…”

Sagishi sounded like he decided to side-step the real issue, adding an off-hand comment. “That’s why you’re not putting on weight.”  
The nurse giggled, approaching Ryota on the sofa with a thermometer and a sphygmomanometer, and a handful more devices the animator had no clue what purpose they served. But Sagishi seemed to trust Mikan, so he made an attempt to ignore the small _syringe in her hand-_

“What’s the syringe for?” He blurted out as she proceeded to wrap the sphygmomanometer’s air-bladder around his upper arm.

Mikan pursued her lips, except she wasn’t any good at hiding the fact that she apparently found the question hilarious. Her face was an open book. “Oh, nothing! I-It’s just a normal t-thing to have around… for me… But of course, patients wouldn’t understand that. I-It’s my job after all! Not yours, so that’s only right. I’m s-sorry if it’s unsightly… I do know my presence is disgraceful but… Please, bear with it until I’ve made sure you’re alright.”

 _Holy shit_. Ryota went from vaguely creeped out to deeply concerned for the woman measuring his pressure in a nanosecond.

“Thank you… for worrying about me.” As ironic as it sounded, that felt like the only right thing to say.

After a while, she finished doing all her check-ups. After each one of them she appeared to warm up a bit more to his silence, and Ryota found himself considering that even though her soft side wasn’t the prettiest, Mikan definitely didn’t have an ounce of malicious intent in her. All her smiles, when Sagishi said something curious, were sincere.

She still scared him more than Kamukura-san would ever manage.

Mikan instructed him to take a handful of antibiotic pills, which Ryota accepted to ingest, with only mild reservations due to their extravagant colors.

Ryota checked the watch in the kitchen. “We’re… still on time. I think.”

“For what?”

“To go to the electronics store before closing time. Tsumiki-san’s apartment is on the other side of town though, and I don’t think public transports are still around...”

“Tsumiki’s car is fast”, Sagishi said as if that resolved the matter definitively.

“Huh? That’s n-not _my_ car! A-And it’s very _p-precious_ to _her_ -”

“Tsumiki, your ex owns five cars. We should take advantage and borrow one for a night before she comes to take it away.”  
“Monophanie is her o-only possession I have left… If she gets it back with a scratch, I will never forgive myself...”

“Your girlfriend gave names to her _five_ cars?” Ryota interjected.

“Isn’t she quite q-quirky? Uhm, that’s endearing, since she doesn’t remember my name at times, s-she cares about them a lot…”

Ryota didn’t even try to discuss that reasoning, since Mikan appeared to have blind faith in her own irrelevance, but the look he exchanged with Sagishi confirmed that the supposed “girlfriend” she talked about with unfiltered adoration wasn’t the most pleasant individual to have around.

Sagishi cleared his throat. “She may have been _quirky,_ but she’s out of your life now, Tsumiki.” The _Thank God_ went unspoken between them. “You don’t owe her anything. Much less paying attention to one of her cars. So what if it takes _a little_ bump here and there?”

“Huh, yeah.” Ryota shrugged. “I think… She may appreciate it if you put a little scratch on her car. As a memento of what you had together.”

“Ex-lovers do this stuff all the time.”

“It’s supposed to be a goodbye gift.”

“I don’t know…” Mikan scratched her elbow, but she seemed to grow more decisive under Sagishi and Ryota’s expectant gazes. “... A last goodbye gift doesn’t s-sound so bad. Afterall, she loves gifts.”

The actor’s voice had a soothing, mellow note to it, the color of the walls glaring in comparison. He even reached out and ruffled her bangs affectionately, much like an older brother. “Then let’s give her plenty.”

  
  
  
  


 

“Now then... p-please buckle your seatbelts.” Mikan was now positively restless and fidgety. The steering wheel looked gigantic with her thin hands resting on it.

“Time’s running out, just start up the car”, Sagishi began, but Mikan’s yelp made the two passengers freeze and stare at her blanching face in the rearview mirror.

“P-Please, Sagishi-san! Safety must come first under any circumstance! I i-insist since they reduce the risk o-of death by 45% and the r-risk of serious injury by 50%...”

Ryota was indeed growing slightly apprehensive for their safety, but that had little to do with their seatbelts and more to do with the driver’s psychological condition. He tried telling this to Sagishi but the actor was focused on following Mikan’s instructions. That spoke for itself.

He simply went along with it, swallowing the lump in his throat. “Actually, I was wondering if you have something for car sickness as well…”

He hadn’t even finished speaking yet when a small package bounced onto his lap. “H-Here you go, Mitarai-san! You s-suffer from it as well?”  
“Oh, a lot.”

He did feel a bit guilty about the lie, but not enough to take it back.

 

  
  
xxx  


 

 

If there was one person in Ryota’s circle of so-called acquaintances who could deal with broken things, it was Kazuichi. Who was, quite conveniently, his neighbor.

Unlike other people, the technician didn’t appear to find Ryota’s alleged terror of the environment outside his apartment particularly disturbing, but here’s the thing, anyone who had known him for more than ten minutes wouldn’t have considered him much more socially adequate. Due to his higher-than-average sexual drive, Kazuichi’s pattern of thought diverged from that which Ryota would have politely called conventional, or, to put it bluntly, simply belonged to a pervert.

In normal circumstances, Ryota had a problem with this weird though necessary layer of society. They were generally less of a waste of space than animators, Ryota figured.

Aside from this, Kazuichi was so selfless and helpful it made Ryota feel bad for scrunching up his nose every time the technician got close to his personal space. He still did, though.

He stumbled into the store, the glaring pinks of the newest Victoria’s Secret bra in the ad the whole wall of monitors was displaying made his head spin once again. It was such a flashy ad the bra could probably shoot lasers or didn’t need to be washed.

The prolonged exposure to Kazuichi’s store had affected Ryota to the point he didn’t even notice anymore, but he saw Sagishi give the monitors a blank stare.

He turned his head to greet Kazuichi with a half-baked apology for his late visit, but the words halted in his throat. Behind the cash desk stood a woman. This fact was the first to begin to alarm Ryota.

But that was not all. Behind the cash desk stood a _hot_ (the only wording Ryota would deem appropriate) woman. Thumbing through a top-shelf magazine. Her nails were a glaring pink, very similar to Victoria’s Secret ad, and what was behind the magazine’s cover wasn’t much of a secret. Her platinum blond hair looked like it had been combed with cotton and electricity, a candy swirled inside her big open mouth, pushed around by her tongue, for everyone to see, like what you’d expect to see happening inside a washing machine.

“Where’s... Kazuichi?” Ryota hesitated.

The woman’s heavily circled, pale blue eyes traveled all the way to him. Her expression went from one of lazy irritation to one of way too invested curiosity until she had examined all of the animator. Ryota felt the sudden impulse of covering as much of his body as possible behind a cardboard figure. “He’s out like a light on the ratty sofa he lives on, with an hangover. Why, who are you? I guess I can tell him you looked for him...” She grumbled that last part half heartedly, like they had asked her to perform a herculean feat. The she sighed, as if talking to herself. “Damn, hot _and_ nice.”

Her voice made Ryota’s eyes go wide. “Excuse me, sorry if I’m mistaken but… Haven’t we met in college, perhaps?”

“H-Huh? Nah, kid, you’re off the mark.” The woman - Miu Iruma, in the flesh - spat out with a dismissing motion of her hand. “I’ve never hung out with stupid idiot weebs once in my life.”

“Iruma-san, you remember me a little?”

“No. No, not at all. Nope. Who’re you again?”

“Mitarai Ryota.” He realized his name wasn’t granted to ring a bell. Ah, yes, now he recalled. “We attended a programming course together for two years.”

“W-Weird, I don’t remember being into programming.”

Ryota thought it best to ignore her ridiculous antics, definitely not looking forward to dealing with her… snappish personality, to say the least. In retrospect maybe he shouldn’t have said anything at all. “It’s alright. I came by because… Well, I really need Kazuichi’s help right now. It’s kind of an emergency”, he admitted, fiddling with the bottom of his jacket and remembering that he probably looked like he had drunk himself to sleep, experienced an existential crisis, almost fainted from a high fever, been pushed around in a car, then walked through a blizzard after ingesting an illegal dose of pharmaceutics.

“What gives, your two-dimensional porn won’t get loaded?”

Ryoma groaned. Sagishi had probably been waiting for the moment Ryoma’s resolve would face an obstacle. He crossed his arms and spoke in a polite tone, which sounded almost surreal to Ryoma, who desired nothing more than to lie down on the floor and put an end to his frustration. “Listen, my friend was hoping to find a competent technician right now, which is what you’re supposed to be if you work at an electronics store. I assume we will have to try somewhere else? In that case we apologize for wasting your time.” The actor who seemed hell bent on the purpose of surprising Ryoma with every word delicately grabbed the animator’s elbow, pulling him towards the door.

He sounded so serious Ryoma decided he would never doubt an actor’s resolve ever again.

“U-Um, Sagishi-san…”

“Wait!” Miu all but yelled, leaning over the counter as if she physically wanted to reach them. “Wait just a second, p-please? Want me to get down and beg? Is that it? Huh! I’m a professional, Macho Man!”

Sagishi paused. His shoulders dropped a little as he shook his head, uncertain. “You just seemed to be very busy with your reading, Iruma-san.”

“What, this? Kazuichi reads this bullshit, not I, the mighty genius, the greatest inventor you moronic pigs will ever see!” The magazine ended up colliding with the floor behind the cash register with an obvious _thump_. “Be grateful I’m here! What can I help ya with, sweetheart?”

“My… tape recorder.” Ryota really just wanted this night to be over.

“What about it? Oh boy, ya got some dirty stuff in there? Gross. Twinks sure are gettin’ kinky these days, huh.”

“Might it be too much to ask her to stop talking?” Sagishi muttered.

“It doesn’t register anything in the first place”, Ryota weakly said, not sure whether he was replying to one or the other.

“This absolutely brilliant babe can fix it up for you, easy peasy.” That said, which didn’t sound like much of a reassurance, she snatched the recorder from the animator’s soft grip. Miu made an endeared sound. “Stick a banana up my ass and call me Susie. Look at me, helping out a virgin oh-so-generously, such is my heart’s goodwill!”

Ryota and Sagishi exchanged a look. Much as Miu proved once again to be an oddball and quite ill-behaved, she was not by any means unintelligent.

“Your mommy didn’t tell ya you don’t _shove_ your PDA down people’s throats? Have some modesty, dear Jesus.”

Ryota flushed, creating an inch more of distance between him and the actor. “You really are the last person with a right to comment.”

“T-that… w-was uncalled for.” Miu’s shoulders shrinked and she sniffled without an ounce of shame. Her eyes started shifting erratically to each part of the tape recorder, her hands getting all shivery around it. “We were best pals in college, right? Dude, we hung out all the time…”

Ryota hardly remember any class from his college days, let alone most of the people he had met there, exceptions made for the already introduced Miu Iruma and few others who somewhat made it to the animator’s long term memory. Needless to say, he never was one of the most outgoing kids in class. A best pal didn’t sound like something he would take pride in having. “Ah, um, this is... unexpected.” He really meant ‘embarrassing’.

“There’s no way you don’t remember a wonderful girl genius like myself, right?”

“You… kinda stole my notes all the time”, he said under his breath, in a voice too little to catch most of it.

And, well, Miu either didn’t want to or was already too focused on her task to notice he had even opened his mouth.

Sagishi, never once leaving his side, placed his arm right next to Ryota’s. Whether is was supposed to be of comfort to him, or to prevent him from getting a concussion if he passed out, Ryota couldn’t bring himself to care.

  


 

 

After that, perhaps an hour went by with Ryota standing idly near the washing machines, sweating nervously and wandering around Kazuichi’s store without a purpose, not necessarily in this order. He was just trying to deal with all the adrenaline running through his bloodstream.

Miu had retreated to the back of the shop, where she claimed her laboratory was. Ryota wondered if he would have to wander around looking at the same tasteless ads until morning came, destroying his chance to work for the most successful anime corporation in the country.

And thus, another hour passed before Miu emerged from her ultra-secret den with a couple devices in her hands, and seemingly even more mascara than she was wearing before. She placed the modified tape recorder next to the cash register, giving Ryota a self-satisfied smirk.

“So it works now?” Ryota egged on when she didn’t say anything.

“Does it work? Why don’t you check for yourself, idiot? But of course it works! Aren’t I the awesome Miu Iruma?”  
“I suppose.”

“You dumb virgins are all the same, boo-oring unbelievers. I even gave ya the time for a satisfying fuck, because that’s how nice I am to my college friends.”

“We weren’t even…” Ryota held back at the last moment. Sagishi was intent on observing the device Miu had produced, which only vaguely resembled the original tape recorder. “Anyway, thanks for working so hard. I didn’t imagine it would take such a long time.”

“Huh. It didn’t take me so long to finish this”, Miu shrugged. “My hair flattened in the meantime so I had to go and doll myself up! It’s not like I can show up anywhere without making sure I’m a total knockout. You uglies wouldn’t understand.” She abandoned herself to her signature obnoxious laugh, pretentiously curling a blond strand of synthetic cotton candy around her finger.

“Turn on this thing, and this time, as you explain, try to act like a civil human being”, Sagishi said, exasperated. Ryota was staring a hole into the wall behind the counter.

Two hours. Two hours because she had to fix her hair.

Miu blinked several times, her shoulders shrinking again, but she complied. “B-Basically, you wait for this to light up... then you press these three, from left to right. All functions are automatically set to produce a high quality sound. A-And this baby over here…” She instructed them on the use of the device, then she threw the shop keys to Ryota and made to leave.

“Y-You’re just gonna leave like that?” The animator couldn’t help but stammer.

“My boyfriend is picking me up, duh. I don’t have _time_ to babysit you, alright? Close up the shop when you’re done. Don’t touch anything, or… Touch all you want! I wash my hands of this. See ya.”

Having said that, the front door slammed shut with a sound that would have woken up a polar bear.

“Alright, um... Did you understand what she said?”

“Strange, but I did. Hand me that.”

Ryota gave the headset to Sagishi, who positioned the recorder at an adequate height, then produced a copy of the script out of his bag. He had to admit Miu’s modifications weren’t particularly complicated to operate; her character may have been the slightest bit aggravating but Ryota respected Kazuichi and Miu’s reliable competence, even if strongly pertinent to one field and completely absent out of it.

“You’re… a pretty fast learner”, Ryota chuckled, his cheeks and nose growing hot as he watched Sagishi’s larger hands set up the device.

“Yeah, I had to become one.” Sagishi noticed the heavy impact of his words and looked up. “It’s necessary for my sort of career.”

“Ah, I see”, Ryota said, “it’s probably difficult to adapt to roles, sometimes.”  
“Not at all. Well, personally. As weird as it sounds I like wearing another’s shoes. I’ve interpreted all kinds of people but somehow, I’ve never found it unnatural.”

“You were born for something as well.” Ryota realized he had blurted it out and averted his gaze for a fraction of second, scrambling to explain himself. “I’ve always felt this way. There is a lot I wasn’t able to do as a kid but if there’s something that makes me feel like life is worth living, it’s this. Like the purpose of my _life_ is to create… Ah, I’m so ridiculous.”

“I’m ready”, Sagishi told him. He never shied away from direct eye-contact. “Let me just get something out of the way. Do you think it’s ridiculous that I’m here to help you, right now?”

“N-No. I’m so grateful to you for helping me out of the blue, I’m sorry if I made it sound like-”

“Then your dreams, or whatever you want to call it, aren’t either. Stop putting yourself down over people’s opinions of you… Trust me, they don’t matter that much.”

To be completely honest, Ryota really didn’t think what Sagishi had done for him deserved to be belittled like that. It wasn’t just something _everyone_ would have done out of simple kindness. At least, to someone who basically expressed his feelings through fiction, Sagishi’s selfless attitude towards a complete stranger he happened to get involved with looked like the most precious thing in the world. Was he getting lost in his thoughts again?

“I guess…”

“No, they really don’t matter”, Sagishi gave him a meaningful stare. When Ryota straightened his shoulders, he showed him a rewarding smirk that probably wasn’t supposed to make the animator’s cheeks burn even harder, then focused on the script and, after clearing his voice, pressed the _record_ button.

Ryota could only listen to the first line of the script, recalling his confinement period in his apartment, before collapsing on the store’s hard floor.

 

  
xxx

 

 

“M-M-Mitarai-san? Mitarai-san, c-can you hear me? Oh my _goodness_ , I’m so, s-so sorry…”

The ground he was lying on was cold like a patch of ice.

Each joint of Ryota’s body creaked in protest when he tried to sit upright. A pair of fast hands immediately supported him. His eyes blinked open, but he jolted awake and shrinked back at the sight of Sagishi’s face so close to his: the man had been observing him carefully. Not that it was an unpleasant face to see first thing in the morning-

He remembered his predicament like someone had turned a switch in his brain, and he groaned, realizing just how stupid that train of thought was. Was he always so embarrassing?

Through the fog in his vision he saw that the sun had indeed started climbing.

“Tsumiki-san...” He identified the voice from earlier, believing it a strange dream, but then he saw her kneeling next to him.

“Y-Yeah, how are you feeling? N-Need me to take your temperature? How many fingers am I holding up?”

“I-I’m fine, Tsumiki, I was just asleep…”

“Technically, you fainted in front of my eyes”, Sagishi corrected him, but with no real bite. “You’re unexpectedly heavy to carry by the way.”

Ryota sat there staring for a long minute. “Did I seriously… at Kazuichi’s store?” Then his brain processed the new information. “Sagishi-san… I’m sorry I keep giving you trouble. I really am.”

“Trouble? You?”

“You’re always having to see me in these situations and still helping me out”, Ryota dragged on, tucking his chin between his knees and hugging himself to keep out the cold.

“Oh, yeah, because it’s totally not a moral obligation to help out someone who fainted in front of you.”

“Your blood pressure has stabilized, Mitarai-san.” Mikan patted his leg weakly as if to comfort him, then sat back on the pink car’s driver’s seat and started up the car.

Ryota thanked her, deciding to spend the rest of the ride side-eyeing Sagishi, possibly without getting caught. When he asked where they were headed, Mikan and the actor exchanged a look through the rearview mirror.

“W-Well… Don’t you have a project to hand in?”

“Is it finished?” Ryota couldn’t hide a note of stupor in his voice.

“The audio is done, but my editing skills are… not exactly the best you can find around.” Sagishi cleared his throat. “I suppose you’re provided of a program that can do this operation?”

“I do have that in my computer, but so does the studio”, Ryota replied. “I was thinking… Maybe it’s okay to piece it together directly there. Once the rest of the animators get there it’s gonna be impossible to work in peace so the earlier we get it done, the better.”

“And if you’re already there when your boss arrives, he can’t even bring up the delay”, Sagishi considered. “So, are you good at climbing?”

“I-I know someone with the key, that’s not necessary…” Ryota was intent of fishing his phone out of his coat pocket, when his hand freezed as an airy laugh erupted from Sagishi’s seat.

“It was just a joke”, the actor added, but his face was not as serious as it always seemed from the outside. Even when the laughter dimmed, a tiny smile smoothed out the lines of his face. He scoffed, then went back to looking out of the car window.  
“Ah… of course.”

“Why don’t you check it out? I’m gonna warn you when we get to the studio.”

“Thanks, let me just give my colleague a call. They’ll open the door for us.”

“Nice, except it’s five in the morning.”

“I don’t think that will be an issue”, Ryota said, cryptically amused, then made to dial the number he had memorized for emergencies. He stared back at himself in the phone’s blank screen. “Uhm. Can you lend me your phone for a minute?”  
Sagishi sighed, but he still held it out for Ryota to take. “Are you seriously gonna wake someone up now?”

Ryota brought the phone to his ear and finally gave him a straight glance. “I told you not to worry about that. I know, sounds weird, but some people have flexible sleep schedules.”

“And having no schedule at all does the trick?”

“Sorry, you’re right, I’ll remind myself to go to bed at 9 next time I want to get a drink at the pub.”

The actor held up his hands in surrender. “I’m just saying it’s a bit drastic.”

“Oh, he’s handled _worse_.”

_“With all due respect, who would I be if I couldn’t handle 5 AM?”_

Ryota jumped at the familiar voice, almost losing his grip on the phone. “Oh, hi! Sorry about calling you this early, but I need a huge favor- Uhm, you see-”

_“Please do not apologize, it would be my pleasure to provide assistance within the limits of my abilities. What exactly can I help you with?”_

  
  
  
xxx

 

 

The studio’s front door was already unlocked when Ryota pushed it, stepping in to seek refuge from the harsh weather that was sending him into hypothermia. A light snow had started falling in the earliest hours of the morning and the hood of Mikan’s originally pink car was covered by a white cloak. Granted, Ryota could appreciate the snow’s beauty, if he looked at it from the safety of his own apartment, possibly under the thickest blanket he owned with a fuming cup of chocolate warming up his entire body.

He sneezed harshly and sniffled once the door slammed shut behind him. He was alone with Sagishi in the unlit hallway. “T-The editing room is the one down there.”

The actor followed suit. Ryota found one computer had already been set up, with a post-it note sticking to the top of the screen.

“... Is Korekiyo a real name?”  
Ryota plugged the recorder to the computer and started typing on the keyboard. “Did you actually just ask if my coworker’s name is real?”

“Alright, I’ll shut up. He seems nice, anyway.”

“He’s… weird, I guess, but he’s not a bad guy. He really is not. Sometimes I don’t get if he’s trying to give you the creeps on purpose, he seems aware of it. But he’s one of the few people I’ve never felt… judged by.”

“Is there someone who _doesn’t_ scare you?” Sagishi leaned down to follow what was happening on the screen, earning himself a peripheral glance from the animator.

“Someone, yes. Once in a while.”

“I mean, Tsumiki is enough to unsettle you, so your judgment can’t exactly be trusted.”

“How do you know Tsumiki unsettles me?”

“I could tell.”

“W-Well… she does walk around with a syringe in her pocket.”  
“It rarely comes in handy.”

Ryota was almost afraid to ask, but he cave into the curiosity. “ _Rarely_? What does she need it for?”

“I’ll see if I can find a coffee machine. Can you hang in here on your own for a bit?”

“Yeah, but… I’ll need answers, later…”

He thought he could see Sagishi’s shoulders shaking, similarly to the way they had when he laughed in Mikan’s car as he walked out of the room. It could have been a trick of the lighting on his tired eyes, though.  


 

 

xxx

  
  


Hajime Hinata had been labeled, almost unwillingly, the nice twin.

It was something everybody thought they knew about him, which meant it would be way too uncomfortable to deny. He admitted to having a naturally polite attitude, other than a tendency to diplomacy and dialogue, and his twin brother’s own character admittedly put everything else into perspective. Moreover, employees had a habit of identifying the most convenient and less aggravating course of action (he’d been in their shoes once), and Hajime was usually the one they came to when they faced trouble.

If he handled the interpersonal aspect of managing an animation studio, his twin was more or less officially in charge of the technicalities.

Which is why Izuru was usually the one sleeping in the office. Hajime didn’t take issue with that so long as Izuru’s health wasn't affected, and once reached that point, “Nice Boss” reputation be damned, he became inflexible.

He thought he’d seen pretty much everything there was too see in an animation studio, but as soon as he pushed open the door to one of the editing rooms on the first floor and switched on the lights, that fragile certainty folded like a house of cards.

He stood without blinking for a moment, his face a mask that seemed a perfectly identical duplicate of his brother’s, and as such should have caused anyone’s concern, if there were anyone to witness it in that moment. The early occupants of the room were fast asleep on a few chairs, one using the other’s chest as a pillow.

A faint red blinking light on the monitor caught his attention, and he made his way over to retrieve the flash drive still attached to the computer.

Peacefully unaware of Hajime’s presence, the two men who kept slumbering next to each other felt like an intimate scene that no one was supposed to see, in another circumstance. Hajime was glad it was him who walked into it first, and not someone else.

After sparing one last glance at their calm faces, the hint of a blush coloring their puffy cheeks, he left the room quietly.

Izuru’s office was located on a lower floor than his, on a level the passersby in the snow-clad street below seemed quite small from but you couldn’t see the top of the other buildings in the area. Izuru liked it a lot this way, though his expression normally wouldn’t betray this. Knowing someone since months before birth had it perks.

Hajime knocked a couple times, out of politeness. He found him sitting on the most uncomfortable chair in the world, which Izuru had chosen for God knows what reason, watching the snow fall.

“Good morning.”

“To you as well,” Izuru greeted in his usual flat inflection.

Offering no warning, Hajime tossed the flash drive at him, which Izuru caught in mid-air without so much as flinching.  
“And this?” He inquired, but he seemed to have a pretty clear idea already; Izuru very rarely was wrong in his assessments.

“Mitarai-san’s project. Looks like he pulled an-all nighter in the studio… They’re sleeping downstairs.”

Izuru gave an affirmative sound. “That’s correct. Mitarai’s deadline was this morning.”

“Do you want to talk to him?”

“Why should I? Tell him to go home and get some rest. The others will start to get here at 8 sharp.”

“I’ll take care of that”, Hajime agreed, honestly not even trying to fight a smile. “Are you feeling the Christmas spirit or something?”

“Tomorrow’s festivity has nothing to do with it”, Izuru replied. Still, he plugged the flash drive into his laptop and composedly waited for it to open before it was time for the working day to officially start. It wasn’t a reach to assume Izuru was more interested in this project than the average assignment.

“I’ll leave you to your it then. But I won’t inform Mitarai-san that he can be in charge of other projects from this moment on, okay?”

His brother furrowed his brow, pondering it. “I don’t see why you shouldn’t.”

“I want to see if he can tell just how much the _scary Kamukura-san_ likes his anime.” Hajime walked out of the office with a sprint in his step, brushing off Izuru’s pointed glare, and the unmistakable note of betrayal in it.

He did remind himself to compliment Mitarai for his promotion later, though.

 

 

xxx

 

 

Sagishi thought it a dream at first.

Mitarai was warm, but not the kind of warmth caused by a fever. His body felt soft against his side, and the tips of his hair tickled Sagishi’s neck as he snored lightly. Not that he minded all of that.

He heard footsteps getting further and further in the hallway, too measured to be a dream, so he supposed it was alright to enjoy the soothing feeling of drowsy warmth and intimate silence together for a bit more, to imprint it into his memory; he felt like it was important to preserve it, precious like only the beginning of something vast could be. And for once he looked forward to seeing what was in store for him.

Before he knew it, Sagishi was drifting back into a comfortable sleep.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!  
> tumblr/twitter - @chvvva
> 
> Happy holidays!!!


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